Now in its third year, the 2016 Latin Jazz and Musical Festival returns to Northeast Los Angeles this weekend, with two days of great live outdoor performances, all free to attend.

The music festival will take place at Sycamore Grove Park on Figueroa Street, and is once again spearheaded by Councilman Gil Cedillo, with help from a slew of sponsors ranging from Metro to Walmart.

When Cedillo introduced the Latin Jazz and Music Festival back in 2014, he said he wanted a festival that matched Highland Park’s “authentic character and vibe.” He also wanted to make sure that the festival would appeal to the area’s young people and take into account the local area’s large Latino population.

(Office of Councilman Gil Cedillo)

The two-day event opens Saturday with the Plaza De La Raza Youth Ensemble at 11:45 a.m. followed by the Heart of Los Angeles Youth Big Band. Headlining Saturday night are the Latin jazz and salsa sounds of Oscar Hernandez and Alma Libre.

Sunday opens at noon with Renancimiento Trio followed by the Bravo High School Latin Jazz Ensemble. Andy Vargas and the Souleros headline Sunday; their show starts at 7 p.m.

Festivalgoers will also enjoy delicious offerings from a variety of food trucks and for those 21 and over, Highland Park’s Greyhound Bar & Grill is hosting a beer garden. This is a wheelchair accessible event for all the family, and organizers suggest bringing a chair, umbrella and sunscreen,

There’s off-street parking and shuttle service available. So walk, bike, skate or take public transportation to the Southwest Museum Metro Station.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti reminded renters last week that they have rights under the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, but as one group of tenants in Highland Park has found out, those rights don’t apply to everyone.

The city ordinance provides protections against eviction and rent hikes to some tenants living in older apartment dwellings, but not to the nearly 60 families living at the Marmion Royal apartment complex at 5800 Marmion Way, across the street from the Highland Park Gold Line Station. The tenants are facing eviction by the property’s new owners, Skya Ventures and Gelt Ventures, who purchased the property from Azusa Pacific University for $14.3 million.

In May, Skya’s president, Gelena Skya-Wasserman, told real estate news site The Real Deal that they plan to renovate the building’s façade and apartment units, and to upgrade security and add new amenities to the complex, which according to The Real Deal was 91% leased when the property changed hands.

Residents and housing advocates on Tuesday denounced the evictions as another example of families being displaced by gentrification of the Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood.

Theresa Andrade, mother of three, told EGP about a year ago she was forced to leave her apartment located on Avenue 51, near Monte Vista Street, because they were increasing her rent.

“Now I’m being evicted from this apartment too,” she added worried.

Flor Ventura and her husband and son have lived at the Marmion Royal for 10 years. On May 16, they received a notice informing them they had 60 days to vacate their apartment.

Ventura told EGP she was at first confused, but soon realized she wasn’t alone. Many of her neighbors had received the same notice.

Not knowing what else to do, she told EGP they reached out to their local councilman, Gil Cedillo, who chairs the city council’s housing committee.

According to Ventura, staff in Cedillo’s Highland Park Field Office told them the problem was out of their hands because the property doesn’t fall under the rent stabilization ordinance, and therefore there was nothing the council office could do for them.

Residents and activists protest the eviction of tenants from the Marmion Royal apartments in Highland Park. (EGP photo by Jacqueline Garcia)

“Basically, they told us the people who bought the building have a lot of money and there’s nothing we can do but leave,” Ventura told EGP in Spanish.

Protections under the Rent Stabilization Ordinance or RSO, apply to multi-unit buildings built before 1978; the Marmion Royal was built in 1987.

The lack of protections for tenants like those at the Marmion Royal has allowed landlords to raise rents as high as they want and has led to a flood of no-fault evictions at the same time that the demand for housing is on the rise, claims the NELA Alliance, a group of local activists documenting gentrification in Northeast L.A.

The majority of tenants living in the units are working-class Latinos. Several tenants receive Section 8 housing subsidies.

“Tenants have asked why we [Los Angeles] do not offer an extended rent control policy,” Cedillo spokesman Fredy Cejas told EGP. According to Cejas, under the 1995 Costa Hawkins Act, “no law can interfere with an owner’s ability to establish the rental rate for his/her property.”

“The Marmion Royal complex does not fall under RSO protection, which means there is little room for us to intervene,” he told EGP.

Ventura said tenants attempted to come to an agreement with the owner that would allow them to return to their apartments once the remodel is complete, but while he was amenable to allowing them to return, their new rent would be nearly double what they now pay.

There’s also the additional cost of finding a new place to live while construction is going on, making the deal unaffordable.

The tenants have formed the Marmion Royal Tenants’ Union, a new entity under which they will fight their displacement.

About 50 tenants have so far signed a petition to fight their evictions, according to John Urquiza, a NELA Alliance activist.

Attorney Elena Popp with the Eviction Defense Network of Los Angeles is helping to protect the tenants from retribution by the landlord.

“When we get to the eviction process, the attorney will kick in and defend tenants,” Urquiza said.
In the meantime, tenants claim the landlord, who already has crews to begin working on the building, is harassing them.

“They have cut the water several days without previous notice,” Marylyn Zamaniego told EGP during Tuesday’s protest. “My daughter is afraid of the constant noise crew workers make,” she added.

EGP reached out to the new owners for comment, but they had not responded as of press time.

However, in May, The Real Deal reported that Skya-Wasserman boasted the “walkability of the up-and-coming neighborhood.”

“The owners prized the adjacency to the [Gold Line] station, which was built in 1911,” according The Real Deal.

A ceremony was held last week in Highland Park to inaugurate the installation of a new traffic signal on Figueroa Street at Avenue 55, where residents have complained of speeding drivers and unsafe conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists.

First District Councilman Gil Cedillo represents the area and was joined at the May 13 installation ceremony by students, teachers and parents from Monte Vista Elementary School.

The new traffic signal is part of his effort to improve public safety in the district, Cedillo said.

“Accidents happen, there’s no question about it,” the councilman told the group. That’s why “we want to make a safe [North Figueroa] corridor,” he added.

Some have sought to blame Cedillo personally for fatal accidents along the commercial corridor, such as those involving a speeding driver who struck Yolanda Espinoza Lugo in a marked crosswalk on Figueroa and Avenue 24, then sped away, and another involving a 17-year-old student from Montebello who was fatally hit by a city-operated semi-truck near his Highland Park school.

But according to Cedillo, since taking office in 2013 he has been actively working with the city’s transportation department to install safety enhancements – such as the traffic lights between Avenue 50 and Avenue 60 that give pedestrians more to time to cross the street and now the signal on Avenue 55.

Another traffic signal is coming soon to Avenue 51 and rectangular rapid crosswalk beacons will be installed on Avenues 35, 41 and 60, according to Cedillo’s Communications Director Fredy Ceja.

“As the local government, public safety is our number one obligation,” Cedillo said last week.

Highland Park resident Jessica Sevillano is the mother of one of the second-graders at the ceremony. She told EGP she thinks Cedillo is doing a good job, but added he could have made the improvements a long time ago and prevented some of the tragedies.

“There have been too many accidents,” she said in Spanish, pointing out that her mother was nearly hit while crossing the street with her son.

“Maybe he has too much work and he didn’t notice before, but this light is much needed,” she told EGP.

Traffic safety work has been done as fast as possible, counters Cedillo’s chief of staff Arturo Chavez. He told EGP that from planning to installation, a new traffic light usually takes two years: “We did it in nine months,” he said about the signal on Avenue 55. “But when accidents happen, there’s nothing that anyone can do to prevent them. A light is not going to prevent them, a crosswalk is not going to prevent them,” he said.

It’s the same point the councilman made an article published by EGP earlier this year. Cedillo told EGP people must take responsibility for their actions. You cannot drink and drive or be texting while driving or walking, he said, explaining that distracted motorists and pedestrians are a safety hazard.

While Cedillo supporters tout his efforts to improve the district, citing his work to clean areas filled with debris and to remove bulky items and make streets safer, others complain that he’s more interested in what big donors to his campaign want. They say he needs to be more hands on and visible.

A local bike activist who often takes to social media to launch barrages of criticism at Cedillo, particularly on traffic safety, has decided to challenge the councilman in the next election. Josef Bray-Ali owns the Flying Pigeon bike shop in Cypress Park and says he has decided to turn his anger into activism.

About two weeks ago, Bray-Ali, 37, filed with the LA City Ethics Commission to start fundraising as a candidate for CD-1 in the March 2017 Primary Election. He hopes to open his campaign office a few doors down from his store by the end of the month.

Councilman Cedillo and students from Monte Vista Elementary cross the intersection of Figueroa and Avenue 55 where a new traffic has been installed. (EGP photo by Jacqueline Garcia)

According to Bray-Ali, he tried for nearly two years to meet directly with Cedillo to discuss the safe-street plan, but could never get past his staff.

“I went from the chief of staff to the field rep to receptionist, and I wouldn’t pass from there,” he told EGP Monday. “We have become a bunch of nobodies in our own neighborhoods,” he complained.

Among his chief complaints was the councilman’s decision to halt plans to build dedicated bike lanes along Figueroa. The proposed “road-diet” would have run from Colorado Boulevard to San Fernando Road. It was shortened to run between York and San Fernando but was eventually completely cancelled per Cedillo’s request to LADOT, according to Bray-Ali.

“There’s a lot of negative emotions that I have towards him as a politician because of the fight that we put to try to get the bike lane along Figueroa,” Bray-Ali said, “and the councilman stopped this project for reasons that are not clear.”

While running for city council, Cedillo expressed support for the road diet, dedicated bike lane plan. But after taking office and holding community meetings on the topic, he dropped his support for the plan, citing the complaints of people who travel the corridor and businesses along the route that reducing lanes for cars will cause traffic tie-ups and increase emergency response times.

Bray-Ali’s and other bike lane supporters’ social media postings, using the hashtags #chaleconCedillo and #RoadKillGil, have blamed the councilman’s cancellation of bike lanes for accidents along Figueroa and in some cases for accidents in other parts of the district.

Chavez calls the postings offensive. He said a road diet alone would not stop people from speeding and questioned why for some people a road diet is a better solution than a street light.

Bray-Ali said the bike route is not his only reason for running for office. He says he wants to build stronger neighborhoods that are more connected.

“I want small incremental growth instead of the big buildings,” he said, emphasizing that renting and buying property nowadays has become almost impossible for residents of the area.

“What are we doing that is failing? Why were generations earlier getting property and we can’t?” he questioned, calling Cedillo’s representation of the district “incompetent.”

The problem of housing affordability, however, is a citywide issue. The city council is considering charging developers fees to pay for more affordable housing or to require that their projects include set-asides for those types of units.

Last August Cedillo announced a plan to use about $9 million available to his district through “excess bond proceeds” left over from the city’s former redevelopment agency, to subsidize some of the 15,000 affordable housing units in danger of being removed from the housing market.

“We are really doing a great job in this area and we are cleaning it up like we committed and making it safer,” Cedillo told EGP.

“Sometimes people who don’t live in our district want to come and criticize us.”

A new parking lot at the Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center will official open this weekend, in time for summer programming at the Lincoln Park community arts venue, city officials said Friday.

The 30 parking spaces replace a dirt lot, adding to existing street and overflow parking near the performing arts and cultural center, and features fencing decorated with panels by artist Sonia Romero.

Councilman Gil Cedillo will join recreation and parks officials on Saturday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 10 a.m.

The facility hosts hundreds of art classes and workshops each season, as well as art shows, cultural events and performances, according to Recreation and Parks officials. It was also the site of a fan gathering for pop artist Selena last month.

This month, Plaza de la Raza is running an original youth theater production, Y.E.L.L. (Your Electronic Lifeline’s Lifeline), a play about a
dystopian future co-written by CalArts grad Sarah Louise Wilson and youth participants, with music composed and performed with former The Airborne Toxic Event band-member Noah Harmon.

Former Los Angeles councilman Ed Reyes was honored by the Lummis Day Community Foundation at the groups’ annual awards dinner earlier this month at the 104-year-old Highland Park Ebell Club.

Reyes received the Foundation’s prestigious “Noisemaker Award,” presented to a person whose work and contributions to the community are consistent with the mission of the Lummis Day Community Foundation “to celebrate the arts, history and ethnic diversity of Northeast Los Angeles through educational and cultural events and to promote cooperation among people of all ages and backgrounds.”

The award was presented to Reyes by Councilman Gil Cedillo, who now represents the council district formerly represented by Reyes.

(Lummis Day Community Foundation)

“I applaud Ed’s expertise and his vision in helping to draw up plans for the Los Angeles River and his long service to the community,” Cedillo said when presenting the award.

This year’s Lummis Day Festival, the 11th annual event, will take place on June 3, 4 and 5 at four Northeast L.A. locations: Occidental College in2 Eagle Rock the Southwest Museum in Mt Washington, Sycamore Grove Park and the area surrounding the York Boulevard & Avenue 50 park in Highland Park.

As always, admission to all festival events will be free of charge. Full festival schedule will be posted at www.LummisDay.org

A street leading to Dodger Stadium was dedicated today as Vin Scully Avenue, prompting the longtime Dodger broadcaster to say he was “overwhelmed” by the honor he once declined.

Scully began his nearly 6 1/2-minute acceptance speech like he would a broadcast, saying “Hi everybody and a very pleasant good afternoon to you,” drawing cheers from the crowd of fans estimated by a team official as “a few hundred,” just inside Dodger Stadium’s main entrance.

“I had to get that out because in all honesty, if you asked me this very minute how do you feel about what’s going on, I would have to say overwhelmed,” Scully said. “I really am.”

Scully later said he was overwhelmed by the kindness and excitement of fans.

“Just to hear you, your enthusiasm, the voice that comes roaring out of the stands, there’s nothing like it,” the 88-year-old Scully said.

Following his opening remarks, Scully recounted his youth in Manhattan during the Great Depression, playing stickball on the streets, and said, “I have to thank almighty God, first of all, to be this old and to continue to do something that I loved all my life.”

Scully then praised his wife Sandi, discussing “the lonely days and nights that a wife has while her husband is working in the ballpark or for that matter, spending over 100 days on the road away from her.”

“If you are fortunate enough to have a wife without complaint you have been blessed and I have been blessed with Sandy,” Scully said.

Scully has said this will be his final season after a record 67 seasons with the team. He said he will most miss “the roar of the crowd,” which brings him back to when he was 8 years old, listening on his family’s radio to college football games that would later spark his interest in becoming a broadcaster.

Mayor Eric Garcetti recalled going to games as a child with his father Gil, who would be elected district attorney in 1992, and asking why fans at the games would bring transistor radios with them.

“My dad had a two-word answer — Vin Scully,” Garcetti said. “He said they understand the game more, they understand the players and the history and the context.” Scully has been “the voice and the heart and the soul of this city,” and “an angel in the City of Angels,” Garcetti said, using a phrase frequently used by former Councilman Tom LaBonge, who was also in attendance.

First District Councilman Gil Cedillo spearheaded effort to bring about the name change and on Friday the City Council gave their final approval to the changing the name of what had been Elysian Park Avenue. The stadium’s new address, 1000 Vin Scully Avenue, was on a new sign welcoming fans to the stadium that was unveiled last week.

When Garcetti made a similar street-naming proposal in 2013 in response to a viewer question on a public affairs television program, Scully said he would prefer for a street near Dodger Stadium to be renamed after Walter O’Malley, who brought the team to Los Angeles from Brooklyn following the 1957 season, or O’Malley’s son Peter, instead of himself.

“The mayor of Los Angeles has a great deal more important things to do than name a street after me,” Scully said at the time. “And if he is considering that idea, better the street should be named after Walter or Peter O’Malley than myself.”

Peter O’Malley succeeded his father as the team’s chairman of the board upon the elder O’Malley’s death in 1979. The O’Malley family continued to own the Dodgers until the team’s sale to the Fox Group in 1997.

“The city is thrilled to be honoring such a legend in Los Angeles. Dodger fans span beyond the First District and beyond the city of Los Angeles, with everyone knowing the voice of Vin Scully,” Cedillo said today. “When Angelenos attend a Dodger game, they will now say, ‘turn on to Vin Scully Ave.’ Vin will be immensely missed, but we wish him well as he kicks off his final season in broadcasting. We would also thank the Los Angeles Dodgers for planting more than 40 new trees and repairing much needed sidewalks along the street.”

Scully has been a Dodger broadcaster since 1950, the longest tenure for a broadcaster with a team. He has been the Dodgers’ No. 1 announcer since 1954, succeeding his mentor, Red Barber, who had become a broadcaster with the New York Yankees.

Either on the team or NBC broadcasts, Scully has called such memorable moments by the Dodgers (or their opponents) as Kirk Gibson’s pinch-hit home run in the bottom of the ninth inning of Game 1 of the 1988 World Series, Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965, New York Yankee pitcher Don Larsen’s perfect game against the Dodgers in the 1956 World Series and Hank Aaron’s record- setting 715th home run.

Scully’s many honors include the Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually by the Baseball Hall of Fame to a broadcaster for “major contributions to baseball” and being named the greatest sportscaster by the American Sportscasters Association.

A ranking system devised by author Curt Smith for his 2005 book “Voices of the Game” determined that Scully was baseball’s greatest announcer, giving him a perfect score of 100, based on such factors as longevity, language, popularity and persona.

The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday tentatively approved revisions to a law that prohibits the storage of property in public areas such as sidewalks, making it so that at least for now, transients will be allowed to keep 60 gallons worth of belongings.

The move came over the objections of advocates for the homeless, who say the law essentially makes homelessness a crime.

The council voted 13-1 to sign off on amendments – including the 60- gallon provision – to the city law known as 56.11 that prohibits tents and other living space to be set up between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. and currently does not allow any storage of personal property in public areas.

Because the vote was not unanimous, the ordinance will return for a second and final vote on April 6.

Councilman Gil Cedillo voted against the revisions. He said there was no need to adopt such a measure because there are other laws that could address concerns raised today by homeowners and others about criminal activity, obstruction of accessibility in public areas and unsanitary conditions associated with homeless encampments.

Councilman Mike Bonin said he was not completely happy with the ordinance, but considered it an improvement over the one now on the books, which only allows homeless individuals to keep as many belongings as they can carry.

The City Council has been under pressure to strengthen the law against legal challenges from advocates for the homeless, and to avoid being seen as criminalizing them.

Top homeless services officials for the city and county also urged the city to change the law to remove any aspects that would criminalize homelessness, saying that failing to do so would jeopardize about $110 million in federal funding needed to provide housing and other services to the homeless.

The City Council voted last November to amend the law to remove aspects that could be seen as criminalizing homelessness. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the first chunk of the funding – $84.2 million – to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.

But the City Council did not move until today to approve the actual language of the amendments promised last fall, and advocates for the homeless say the revisions still contain criminal penalties and provisions that would punish the homeless for being forced to live on the streets.

Under the revisions, it would be unlawful for homeless individuals and others who refuse to take down their encampments during the day or prevent a city employee from doing so.

It would also be a misdemeanor if an individual delays, resists or obstructs a city employee from moving, removing, impounding or discarding personal property stored in a public area.

Homeless individuals would be allowed to store a 60-gallon bin’s worth of belongings – including deconstructed tents, bedding, clothes, food, medicine, documents and other personal items – on the sidewalk as long as they are attended.

The city could still impound property that is left unattended and any property that is in excess of the 60 gallons, under the revised ordinance.

City attorneys said earlier this month the amendments are aimed at giving the city a way to keep sidewalks clear and accessible while allowing homeless individuals to keep some belongings if there are no other places to store them.

Assistant City Attorney Valerie Flores told the Homelessness and Poverty Committee that the 60-gallon provision was included in the hope of striking “the right balance,” but added that “this is sort of uncharted territory” in terms of whether the courts would accept it.

She said the provision is an improvement over the existing law, which “did not allow anything a person couldn’t carry.”

“We do believe this is a lawful ordinance and a court would appreciate the dueling interests that we’re trying to serve and hopefully uphold the ordinance,” Flores said.

The proposed ordinance could cost the Los Angeles area the remaining $24 million in HUD grants being sought by the city and county’s joint homelessness services authority “at a time when the city and county can scarcely afford to lose a single dollar in federal funding for the homeless,” , according to the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles.

One of two Los Angeles City Council staff members arrested in separate weekend incidents for allegedly driving under the
influence pleaded not guilty today to two misdemeanor charges.

An April 20 pretrial hearing is scheduled for Fredy Ceja, 36, a spokesman for First District City Councilman Gil Cedillo.
Ceja was arrested at 12:06 a.m. Saturday at Sixth and Spring streets in downtown Los Angeles. He was released on bond early Wednesday.

According to the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office, Ceja is charged with driving under the influence with a prior DUI conviction and driving with a blood- alcohol level exceeding 0.08 with a prior DUI conviction, both misdemeanors. Both charges include an enhancement of refusing to submit to a blood-alcohol test.

A Los Angeles Police Department source told the Los Angeles Times that Ceja’s car collided with a Metro bus.

Cedillo’s chief of staff, Arturo Chavez, said Ceja was cited for DUI during his off-work hours while using his personal vehicle, but declined to comment further, calling it a personnel matter.

Records cited by The Times suggest Ceja and Torres may have had earlier brushes with law.
A man matching Ceja’s name and date of birth was arrested by the LAPD near the southbound 101 Freeway in December 2009 on suspicion of driving under the influence, according to jail records reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. He was later charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and reckless driving, and he pleaded no contest in 2010 to reckless driving, according to court records. At a May 3, 2010, sentencing, he was given 36 months probation and 30 days in L.A. County Jail, according to court records.
In 2006, a man matching Ceja’s name and date of birth pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of alcohol and was sentenced to six days in L.A. County Jail, according to court records cited by The Times. In 2003, a man matching Ceja’s birth date and name pleaded no contest to driving under the influence of alcohol and was sentenced to a three-year probation term, the
newspaper reported.